Foot in mouth disease reaches Thailand
Posted by woodsy on 19 November, 2006
If proof were needed that politicians are badly informed and have a tendency to approach every problem with an open mouth, the Thai ICT Minister, Professor Sitthichai Pokai-udom, proves the case admirably m’lud.
The Bangkok Post reports that, on the subject of open source software, he said the current Thai government plan was a case of the blind leading the blind, as neither the people in charge nor the people in industry seemed to know the dangers of open source software.
“With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it and all your ideas become public domain. If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated,” he said.
The Minister claimed that, with the exception of Linux, most open source software is often abandoned and not developed, resulting in lots of bug-ridden, low-quality software.
He has since resorted to another typical politician’s trick, claiming he was misunderstood or that he misunderstood, according to Thai blogger iTeau.
